Boston offers same-sex marriage, big city culture in a small
city package, and a historic tea party. Cleveland offers rock and roll, cowboys
on horses, and Dennis Kucinich. Washington, D.C. offers historic monuments,
political pull, and Martin Luther King Jr. Such are the charms bid
organizations in each of those cities hope will lure the 2014 Gay Games to
their home turf.

Currently, members of the Federation of Gay Games are poring
through hundreds of pages of bid documents submitted by Boston 2014, Cleveland
Synergy Foundation, and Metropolitan Washington Gaymes. An online question and
answer period will ensue next month, a FGG task force will visit each city this
summer, and an eyeball-to-eyeball meeting will be held with representatives of
all three organizations at FGG's annual meeting this September in Cologne,
where one will be chosen.

Handicapping this early in the game who should be the
favorite is a dicey proposition at best – many thought Paris was a lock
for the 2010 Gay Games and others thought Johannesburg was an emotional
favorite before Cologne won that bid – but the bid books reveal a lot
about the respective organizations' abilities to deliver what the Gay Games are
seeking.

The bids

Boston is banking on its long and rich LGBT sports history,
the cachet of its historic architecture, and its ability to pack most of its
sports offerings in a small geographic area, with many events held at Harvard
University and Boston University. All three bidding organizations open their
documents by quoting Gay Games founder Dr. Tom Waddell, but Boston immediately
dismisses the ability of any other bidder (or former Games host, for that
matter) to deliver what it could deliver.

"We have, without a doubt," the Boston bid
declares, "a team of organizations and individuals from both the local
LGBT and non-LGBT communities with the ability to stage the best Gay Games in
the history of the event. That track record is unmatched by any of the finalist
cities. The progressive nature and equality of the Boston and Massachusetts
community will provide an environment of openness and comfort that the Gay
Games has not seen in 25 years."

Ouch!

Cleveland, whose bid runs more than 400 pages of white type
on colored backgrounds (not easy on the eyes of aging athletes) is the relative
newcomer on the block – a fact its bid is very conscious of.

"We see this as an opportunity to play up the 'Why
Cleveland' factor as our mantra," its bid states. "Before we can
solicit excitement about [Gay Games IX], we need to generate excitement about
Cleveland's role as an ambassador to the community, so that friends and allies
will embrace the opportunity to travel to Ohio and participate in GGIX.

"And to put it simply, why not Cleveland? If we look at
the Gay Games as a celebration of our diversity and an opportunity to educate
the broader community about the LGBT culture, there is no better place to
create surround-sound acceptance than the heartland of the United States."

Cleveland pins much of its hopes by drawing comparisons to
nearby Chicago, whose 2006 Gay Games were the first ones not to bleed cash
since the original 1982 and 1986 events in San Francisco. (CSF even said it
used Chicago's federal tax returns to draw up its budget estimates.) "As
recently evidenced," the bid states, "Chicago has now been ranked the
fifth most-popular destination city for the LGBT community, replacing Fort
Lauderdale – and the 2006 Gay Games has been credited for this amazing
change."

Question is, will the FGG want to return to the heartland so
soon after Chicago? And some of the Cleveland packaging seems focused on what
may be a relative non-issue by 2014: competition from the Outgames. Chicago had
to go virtually head-to-head with the Outgames in Montreal, which badly
curtailed Canadian registration. Cleveland's bid contains the inclusion of
rodeo. That

would be a first for the Gay Games and is intended to help to bring
in Canadian participants.

Not to mention animal rights protesters.

Although the Metropolitan Washington Gaymes does not cite as
lengthy a connection to the Gay Games movement, it certainly competes with
Boston in terms of active LGBT sports organizations and is the only one that
can document sustained involvement in FGG's internal affairs over the past six
years. Team D.C. became a member of the FGG in 2003; neither Team Boston not
Team Cleveland is a member. MWG Chair Brent Minor has served as the FGG's
co-president and officer of development and played an instrumental role in the organizing
of a successful 25th anniversary fundraiser in San Francisco two years ago.

D.C.'s sports venues are scattered over two states and the
District, but MWG argues in its bid that having the games in the nation's
capital is likely to help it sustain the current economic doldrums better than
the other cities, and that having foreign embassies in the city will enable it
to better market the Games and bring in scholarship athletes.

Bid notes

Cleveland and Boston use rainbow colors in their logos; the
D.C. logo shows athletes competing ... Boston and D.C. pledge to reduce their
carbon imprint; Cleveland does not focus on environmental impact ... Boston
would hold opening ceremonies at Harvard Stadium and closing ceremonies at
Fenway Park; D.C. would use Nationals Park and RFK Stadium; Cleveland would
close and open at Cleveland Browns Stadium ... Boston and D.C. propose July
26-August 2; Cleveland says August 9-14 is better because "many countries
are on holiday at this time" ... Boston would drop martial arts, beach
volleyball, rugby, and powerlifting ... Cleveland would put women's softball in
Akron and hold track and field in Berea ... D.C. would focus rugby on women so
as not to compete with the Bingham Cup and add an orchestra event, gospel
chorus, and events geared for athletes bringing children.

Sports briefs

TMAA pays tribute to dead boy

Triangle Martial Arts Association has declared Friday, April
17, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Memorial Day in tribute to an 11-year-old
Massachusetts boy who hanged himself last week after enduring bullying at
school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother
's weekly pleas to the school to address
the problem. The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network stated in a news
release that this is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child
linked to bullying this year.

Friday also is GLSEN's annual National Day of Silence event,
where participating students take some form of a vow of silence to call
attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.

TMAA President Ken Craig, who declared the memoriam, said
Walker-Hoover's death "sadly reflects a known and troubling pattern in the
education systems of many countries around the world."

"Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in
Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the
same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual
National Day of Silence," Craig added.